


Encryption

by batwayneman



Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Batman: Arkham Knight
Genre: Arkham Knight alternate ending, Babs is a badass, Barbara fixes it, Gen, why do all my stories have 'X is a badass'??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 06:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12126666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batwayneman/pseuds/batwayneman
Summary: As she watches Scarecrow's broadcast, Barbara knows what she must do.





	Encryption

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if this will make sense if you don't know Arkham Knight's plot, but you're welcome to read even if you don't know the game! 
> 
> Oh and uh, spoiler alert.

Barbara is tense.

She's sitting in the GCPD building, surrounded by all the officers who weren't injured. Everyone is staring at the televisions in the room, which are all playing Scarecrow's broadcast from the run-down Arkham Asylum.

The feed is boring right now, with only the background of the decrepit building in the view. But a few minutes ago Scarecrow had showed them the other people in the room - Tim and her dad - and what’s left of the GCPD had erupted in concern and anger, all angry voices and indignation and fear.

She hadn't said anything at the time, being too relieved that they both appeared to be as unhurt as she could have reasonably expected. Her dad's face was a mess of bruises, and Robin's nose was bleeding steadily. They seemed alright; Robin was well enough that Scarecrow had gone through the trouble of restraining him, and her dad was still standing straight and proud.

So, really, it isn't as bad as it could be.

Behind her, Aaron Cash exhales slowly. He is handling things better than the rest of the officers, but then, having worked in the Asylum, he would have seen Scarecrow a lot more than the average officer.

The air in the GCPD building, despite the whirling fans, doesn't seem to be moving at all. They are all waiting, just watching the monitors of the empty hallway like it is the most engrossing movie ever put to film.

A sound from the TV makes everyone tense up more, which Barbara hadn't thought was possible. She watches the grainy feed, her heart pounding in her throat, and she _hates_ how scared she suddenly is.

When Scarecrow wheels Batman in, bound in the vertical restraints that Arkham used to use, her blood turns to ice. The news broadcasts has been reporting his capture for a while, but she had assumed it was a bluff, that he was trying to bait Batman with her dad and Robin. She hadn’t considered that he would actually give himself up.

Which she really should have. Forgetting his self-sacrificing habits even for a second was a dangerous oversight on her part.

Cash swears passionately from over her shoulder, and she agrees with every word as she leans forward in her uncomfortable chair.

In all her time as Batgirl, and then Oracle, she has always hated seeing Batman helpless, whether from injury or being tied up. There is something viscerally unnatural about the image of Batman's strength being held back like that: its like an image that doesn't belong.

She forces herself to inhale.

Bruce will have a plan, he always does.

Scarecrow starts talking. Barbara tries to ignore the slithery, soft voice, trying to focus instead on Batman, looking for any clues or any non-verbal communication. The feed isn't good quality - it's grainy and flickering - but she doesn't see any of the tell-tale signs of communication that he had taught her when she was in the field. She purses her lips together, willing him to let her in on his plan.

Scarecrow's voice, dripping with satisfaction, distracts her from her study, "...I don't care who you are, but they will."

No.

 _No_.

She can barely hear the gasps and anxious shuffling of the officers around her through the roaring in her ears.

It doesn't matter what Bruce's plan is now, or what it was, because Barbara knows what she has to do. She _must_ stop this broadcast, before Scarecrow can reveal his identity.

She knows how many of his enemies would love to get their hands on his secret, and they make threats so often she knows, in great detail, exactly what they will do. She knows what the public will do; rake his name through the mud, seize all his assets and his company, never mind the million of people he employs.

She knows what he himself will do.

She learned about the Knightfall protocol when she was still figuring out her role as Oracle. She knew that she was going to be their technical support and hacker, but she had wanted to to test herself against the strongest defences that she could - the Batcomputer - after quickly growing bored of the simple defences that she had been practising breaking through. She hadn't been looking for anything in particular, had only been trying to see how far she could go undetected. But she had reached the file and saw what his plan was if the public ever learned of his identity. What he would do to to the Manor, to himself, to Alfred.

She had been so shocked she had just let the computer kick her out.

By the next week she had updated the Batcomputer's firewalls and defences herself, but she couldn't fix what she had seen. If Bruce knew about what she had seen, he had never mentioned anything.

Scarecrow is still talking, taunting on the TV, but she is not listening, because she is wheeling herself as fast as she can to the nearest computer.

The wheelchair itself is inefficient and horribly uncomfortable. It's heavy; designed for people with short term injuries, completely unlike the nice one that Bruce had paid for. Her back and shoulders are already starting to cramp, but they're like a distant buzzing compared to the fear flooding her body, making her type as fast as she can.

She isn't sure what she was expecting, in terms of how much protection Scarecrow would have guarding the broadcast from people interfering, but she definitely isn't the expecting military grade encryption waiting for her.

Leaning forward slightly, she frantically scans the computer for _something_ she could use as a weakness to exploit. She’s scrolling through the code so fast that she's half terrified that she's going to miss her opening, but there is no time to go back and double check, she just has to trust that she'll recognize what she's looking for when she sees it.

From the broadcast she hears her dad speaking. Even now, facing down a monster, with their best chance at help incapacitated, his voice doesn't tremble. Fierce pride burns through her chest as she keeps working.

The sound of a gunshot from over the TVs makes Cash gasp a desperate "No!", and makes her freeze for a bare second, before throwing herself back into the code with renewed ferocity.  
She hears he dad's voice again, but this time it does nothing to ease the knot in her chest, because it means that it was Tim who was shot.

Fantastic.

There isn't time for her to feel anything, because the only way she can help him now is finding - _that_. There, a small sequence of repeating code. It keeps appearing, now that she recognizes it. It’s spread out in clusters; similar in function to the weakness that she used to gain access to the Arkham Knight's drones.

And of course it was the Knight - or more likely someone he had hired - who had encrypted the broadcast. She allows herself a half second to curse at her own stupidity of not thinking of looking for similar flaws earlier, and then she gets to work, unravelling layers of the protective code as fast as she can.

If she can get to the main broadcast, she'll be able to overload it, or corrupt it, she knows she can. She just has to do it before her dad takes off Bruce’s cowl.

Batman's voice over the TV is not enough to startle her into pausing in her work, but it does set her heart pounding furiously in her chest.

It's terrifying, it's maybe one of the worst things that she's ever heard, because he's resigned, and telling her dad to take off his mask. He's _resigned_.

Bruce has no plan.

Barbara has a plan.

This is _not_ the end, it will not _be_ the end. It can't be, because she is still here fighting, and if she can't do it as Batgirl anymore then she will do it as Oracle, sitting in a uncomfortable chair with exhausted arms and spasming fingers, and she will _still_ not let the bad guy win.

The sudden swell of panicked and excited voices from the officers makes her tear her gaze away from the computer to look at the TV. There's her dad on the screen, reaching up with both hands towards the cowl, and Batman is still not moving. Accepting. She turns back to her computer, eyes wide and pulse pumping furiously as types. The damned encryption is still trying to put up a fight, and her heart pounding furious as she slams the last of her commands into the keyboard. The encryption finally falls away, and she's almost done it, she just has to kill the broadcast itself and -

The static fizzle of a lack of signal coming from the TV is the best sound that she has heard in a very long time. The officers slowly realize what happened, and soon the sounds of happy voices, sighing and gasping in relief that the secret was still safe.

From behind her, Cash laughs weakly under his breath. "That was you, huh?"

"Yes," she replies, and only then realizes that she hasn't been breathing, and starts gasping in deep breaths, clutching at the arms of the wheelchair. He awkwardly pats her on the back, before running both hands down his face, and walking a few away from her to address the room.

"Alright people, I know that we’re all very excited, but I need a team of people to come and wait with me for Batman to bring Scarecrow in," he calls. Several people start to move around, breaking out of their trance and gathering their gear.

"I assume you're coming," he says, turning back to look at her. She nods, still trying to make her racing heart calm with deep breaths, though she's starting so suspect that it won't until she sees that they are all safe.

* * *

  
They wait by the GCDP entrance for a long time, longer that Barbara was expecting. She knows that it would take time for them to deal with Scarecrow, but although she trusts that they can handle it, her anxiety gets worse and worse every minute that they don't show up. She's trying as hard as she can to keep the terrible 'what if's' away, but it's only when she hears the low whine of the Batmobile that she sags in relief.

There's Batman, with his skin looking particularly pale, veins slightly darker than they should be, dragging a clearly terrified and twitching Scarecrow with him. Behind them Robin is leaning against her dad as they stagger slowly behind them.

Now, seeing them all, still alive, the last of her fear drained out of her. They were all hurt, herself included; bruised and bloody. But they were still here, with all their secrets intact.

Everything else can be figured out later.

"Nice one Batman, we'll get him put away," Cash says, grabbing Scarecrow's arm, ignoring the small yelp of fear.

Tim and her dad slowly shared a look of confusion at the use of 'Batman'; their eyebrows pulling down in confusion. Batman himself gives no indications of surprise, but instead freezes, waiting for more information, trying to figure out why Cash doesn't know his identity.

Barbara feels the smug satisfaction of knowing something that they didn't, and for once lets herself relish in it.

She is used to being the underdog. First as Batgirl, the second-rate Robin that they only stopped mocking when they were unconscious. Then as Oracle, the backup that no one actually saw, and few knew existed. And as the commissioner's daughter, whose only purpose was leverage to control her dad.

Anger might come later, that none of the people closest to her had expected her to save them, but for now she is far too relieved that they are all safe to feel anything but triumphant.

She wheels herself out of the shadows that she has been waiting in; unable to resist a dramatic entrance. Everyone turns to look at her.

Batman figures out what she has done first, showing surprise in the slightest release in his jaw, then the smallest uptick of his mouth. He so rarely shows when he is shocked; not only is it damn near impossible to surprise him in the first place, but he is unfairly good at hiding his reactions. She meets his gaze with a smirk.

The next thing she knows her dad is running to her, sweeping her into such a crushing hug that he pulls her from her chair. She clings to him as tightly as he is to her, and the last of the fear that she didn't know she was still holding onto fades away. It feels like it did when she was a little kid, and would stay awake at night waiting for him to come home; his hugs have always meant that the danger is over, that she can sleep peacefully now.

She opens her eyes - she wasn't sure when she had closed them in the first place - and looks over her dad's shoulder to see Robin, who is leaning against Batman, absolutely beaming at her, and she can't help but match it.

Cash, still holding on to Scarecrow, clears his throat awkwardly. "What about him?" He tilts his head in Scarecrow's direction. "Did he, uh, see anything?"

Her dad eases her back into her chair as silence falls over the group. They all know that Scarecrow _must_ have seen Batman's identity - how could he not have, when her dad had clearly taken off the cowl after she shut down the broadcast. But they need an explanation for the public, so that Scarecrow won't be taken seriously if he wants to spread his information.

"He was dosed with his own fear toxin," her dad finally says after a long pause. Batman turns to look at him out of the corner of his eye. "Anything he say has no validity, because he was drugged." He pauses again, thinking through the alibi, before nodding to himself. "No one saw Batman's identity," He lies.

Cash nods. "You're the boss," he says simply.

She meets Robin's eyes, who smiles at her; confirming that her dad's lie will work. Batman doesn't say anything; doesn't show any outwards signs of gratefulness, but she can see some of the tension in his shoulders melt away as he looks around the group.

The terrible night was over, really over this time. She saved the day: Scarecrow will be locked up, everyone is still alive, and the world doesn't know who Batman was.

She relaxes.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I don't actually have a problem with the end of Knight, I just thought it was kinda funny that they set it up that Babs could hack the drones but couldn't stop a broadcast *shrugs*


End file.
